Friday, July 11, 2008

Meet Juliette Gordon Low. Founder of Girl Scouts. (I so think she would have gone to Naughty Camp if she could.)She was born on Halloween of 1860 in Savannah, Georgia. Her family refered to her as "Daisy", she was the second of 6 children. As a young girl, she was known to be sensitive, and talented, with a lifetime interest in the arts. She wrote poetry, acted in plays, sketched, painted, and sculpted. She had many pets, but was especially fond of mockingbirds, and dogs. They say she also had a very good sense of humor.In her teens, she attended boarding school at the Virginia Female Institute in Staunton, Va. She later attended a French finishing school in New York City. In 1886, she married William Low, a wealthy Englishman. She spent much time traveling between the British Isles, and the US. Unfortunately for Juliette, she had suffered from many chronic ear infections. She lost most of the hearing in one ear because the treatment she was provided was improper. At her wedding, a grain of "good luck rice" got lodged in her ear, puncturing the eardrum, resulting in infection, and total loss of hearing in that ear. During the Spanish-American war, Juliette came back to America to aid in the war effort. She and her mother organized a convalescent hospital for the wounded soldiers returning from Cuba. At the end of the war, she returned to England, however, her marriage had disinigrated. Her husband died in 1905, while they were seperated. After this, she spent several years searching for something useful to do with her life. In 1911, she met Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the founder of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides. Becoming interested in this, she channeled her energies into this movement. She came back to the United states and announced to her cousin "I've got something for the girls of Savannah, and all of America, and all the world, and we're going to start it tonight!" On March 12, 1912, she gathered 18 girls to regester the first troop of American Girl Guides. Her neice, and namesake, Margaret "Daisy Doots" Gordon, was the first to regester. That next year, the name was changed to Girl Scouts. Juliette brought her girls into the outdoors, and encouraged them to learn multiple things, from traditional home making, to arts, sciences, and business. The Girl Scouts welcomed girls with disabilites as well. Juliette herself suffered not only from her deafness, but also back problems, and cancer. From those original 18 girls, Girl Scouts has grown to 3.7 million girls strong.

Oh what a good choice ... Bobs Merrill published a series, have I gone on about this before?, of biographies with these robin's egg blue covers ... we read them in elementry school and her's was one of my favorites (along with Nancy Todd who became Mrs Abe Lincoln)

About Me

I think, at this point, this blog defies any description. I ramble on about various things, but since I now have my little boy safe and at home it's a safe bet I am going to be blogging about him a whole lot...
And to think this blog started out as a single girl's search for a good man...
hahahahaha!